Col. Isaac Allerton Jr. (c. 1627/1630 – December 30, 1702) was planter, military officer, politician andmerchant incolonial America. Like his father, he first traded inNew England, and after his father's death, in Virginia. There, he served on the Governor's Council (1687-1691) and for many years in theHouse of Burgesses, representingNorthumberland County and laterWestmoreland County.^[1]

Born inPlymouth, Massachusetts, sometime after May 22, 1627, and before September 21, 1631 (since no birth record has been found),^[2][3][4] his father and grandfather were among the colony's leaders. His fatherIsaac Allerton Sr. had emigrated to what was then known as thePlymouth Colony on the shipMayflower, as aPilgrim.^[2] His father's first wife, Mary Norris, had died the following winter, on February 25, 1621. Thus the younger Isaac Allerton had 3 half-siblings (all born in Leiden, Holland): Bartholomew, Remember andMary, the last surviving passenger of theMayflower.^[5]

His motherFear Brewster, was the elder Allerton's second wife, and the daughter of ElderWilliam Brewster.^[2][6][7][8] the colony's spiritual and political leader,^[9] who had also sailed aboard theMayflower as well as signed theMayflower Compact. Her mother wasMary Brewster, and Fear Brewster arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on July 10, 1623, aboard theAnne. Another passenger on theAnne was this man's aunt Sarah Allerton, who had marriedDegory Priest^[10] who had also arrived on theMayflower and signed the Mayflower Compact. The widowed Sarah had married Priest in a dual wedding with Isaac Allerton Sr. and his first wife.^[11]

Fear Brewster Allerton died sometime before December 12, 1634. Disagreements with fellow Plymouth Colonists concerning his commingling his own merchant accounts with the colony's payments to the Merchant Adventurers for funding theMayflower voyage increased after his second wife's death. Also, he had previously established a trading post in Maine, which interfered with the colony's monopoly on the fur trade and later with a British treaty. Thus, the elder Allerton moved south to theNew Haven Colony. However, young Isaac did not initially join him. Instead he was raised by his maternal grandfather William Brewster, and eventually joined the family of his uncleLove Brewster. Meanwhile, by 1644, when elder Brewster died, the elder Isaac Allerton had again remarried, to his third wife, JoannaSwinnerton.^[12]

His grandfather Brewster tutored young Isaac before he entered college.^[13] He graduated fromHarvard College inCambridge, Massachusetts in 1650.^[14][15]

Allerton married twice. He married his first wife, Elizabeth (...) inNew Haven, Connecticut in 1652–3.^[13] Before her death, they had two children, Elizabeth (1653–1740) and Isaac (1655-?).^[16] Elizabeth was born on September 27, 1653^[16] inNew Haven, Connecticut and first married Benjamin Starr, who was born inYarmouth, Massachusetts, the grandson of DoctorComfort Starr ofBoston (who emigrated fromAshford, Kent^[17] and foundedCambridge, Massachusetts andHarvard College) and nephew of Hannah Starr, the wife ofJohn Cutt (the first President of theProvince of New Hampshire). Following Starr's early death, Elizabeth married his first cousin Simon Ayers (or Eyres or Eyre) of New Haven.^[18][19]

His son Isaac (the third of the name) was born at New Haven on June 11, 1655. He accompanied his father to Virginia when he was a child, but returned to New Haven about 1683 and lived there most of the remainder of his life.^[13]

In 1663, Allerton married as his second wife the twice-widowed Elizabeth Willoughby (Overzee) Colclough.^{[20][13][21][22][23]} They had three daughters and a son:^[24]

Circa 1660, the widower moved his family to Virginia'sNorthern Neck. Initially he had settled inWicomico inGloucester County on waterfront land near the plantation ofCol. Richard Lee II, who later served with him on the Governor's Council and invested in land further upstream on thePotomac River in what becameNorthumberland andWestmoreland Counties. Allerton and his descendants became wealthy as planters in Virginia, with indentured servants, and ultimately owned a 2,150-acre (8.7 km²) plantation on the south side of theRappahannock River.^[25] As a tobacco planter-merchant Allerton probably constructed a wharf and warehouse (as his father had done in New Amsterdam) since financial success required both growing and transporting tobacco. Whether Allerton bought land from his neighbor Richard Lee II or acquired it over time is not known. He may have acquired the land from his marriage to Elizabeth, who would have acquired it from her previous marriages or from her parents.

In 1663 Allerton was appointed a justice of then vast Northumberland County (the justices jointly administered the county in addition to judicial duties). In 1667 he was a member of the "Committee of the Association of Northumberland, Westmoreland and Stafford Counties". He joined the local in theVirginia militia and ultimately rose to the rank of colonel.^[22] As a major in 1667, he served under ColonelJohn Washington, the great-grandfather of presidentGeorge Washington,^[13] Settlers in the area had experienced massacres in 1622 and 1644, and when the southern MarylandDoeg sent a raiding party in 1675 that killed three colonists, the initial response was by Col.George Mason and Captain Giles Brent Jr., who destroyed their Virginia settlement (at Dogue Neck, later a plantation of the Mason family) and pursued them across the river and into the Maryland woods.^[26] Then Maryland and Virginia colonists raised a force estimated at 1000 men, the Virginians led by Cols. Washington and Allerton and the Marylanders by Major Truman, to attack a fort theSusquehannocks had erected on an island in the Potomac River. The colonists attacked the fort, and five Native Americans who had surrendered were slaughtered by Maryland militia, which led to charges filed against both Washington and Allerton in the General Court atWilliamsburg.^[27][28] Although Washington died before the proceedings finished, Allerton was acquitted.^[29]

Allerton first served as a member of the House of Burgesses in 1667, representing Westmoreland County during a break in service of his merchant friendNicholas Spencer. He would then represent either adjoining Northumberland County, or Westmoreland County for all the sessions in which those Northern Neck counties sent representatives for the next fourteen years.^[30][31][32]

DuringBacon's Rebellion in 1676, Allerton remained loyal to governor Berkeley, who was later criticized by a royal commission.^[33] Nathaniel Bacon specifically denounced Allerton as one of the governor's cronies.^[34] Allerton's family also developed a close relationship with the Lee family, who had vast estates in both counties. Like John Washington, both Allerton and Lee were senior officers and also served as members of the General Court of Virginia (the county's appellate court had sessions during those of the House of Burgesses). Allerton and Lee participated in commerce, governmental affairs and social activities.^{[citation needed]}

Allerton served on the Governor's council from 1687 to 1691, when he, Lee and John Armistead resigned rather than take a loyalty oath toWilliam III andMary II, who had ousted King James.^[35][13] After a decade-plus break in service, Allerton won his last election to the House of Burgesses in 1696, but wrote that illness prevented him from attending to October 1697 session.^[36] Nonetheless, he received an appointment as naval officer and tax collector for Westmoreland county in 1699.^[37]

Meanwhile, Allerton was on the committee that in 1680 resolved the complicated widow's claim after the execution of rebel Giles Bland, and that year also was appointed escheator (resolving estates of those dying without issue) for Westmoreland or adjacent Northern Neck counties.^[38] In 1688, Allerton joined Captain George Brent ofStafford County, Virginia (who had emigrated from Maryland) and CaptainLawrence Washington as trustees of the estate of their mutual friend, Nicholas Spencer; Col. Spencer also bequeathed each man forty shillings for amourning ring.^[39] to serve as trustees of his estates.^[40]

Isaac Allerton died between October 25, 1702, and December 30, 1702, in Westmoreland County, Virginia.^[13][22]

Lee's younger brotherHancock (1652–1709)^[41] married Allerton's daughter Sarah (1670–1731) after Hancock's first wife died. They became the great-grandparents of PresidentZachary Taylor,^{[42][43][44][45]} through their daughter Elizabeth Lee and grandson ColonelRichard Taylor, an officer in theContinental Army in theAmerican Revolutionary War.^[13] Another great granddaughter was Mary Willis Lee^[46] (1757–1798), the daughter of Hancock Lee II (1709-1762) and Mary Willis^[41] (1716–1766). She married Ambrose Madison^[47] (1755–1793). He was the son ofJames Madison, Sr., the owner of a tobacco plantation inOrange County, Virginia; and the brother ofJames Madison^[48] (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) an Americanpolitician andpolitical philosopher who served as thefourthPresident of the United States (1809–1817) and is considered one of theFounding Fathers of the United States.

• Allerton, Walter S.A History of the Allerton Family in the United States 1585 to 1885 Higginson Book Co., 1900.
• Billings, Warren M.The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century Publisher: UNC Press, 1975ISBN 0807812374.
• Jones, Emma C. Brewster.The Brewster Genealogy, 1566-1907: a Record of the Descendants of William Brewster of the "Mayflower," ruling elder of the Pilgrim church which founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. New York: Grafton Press, 1908.
• Lee, Edmund JenningsLee of Virginia, 1642-1892: Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of the Descendants of Colonel Richard Lee Publisher: Heritage Books, 2008,ISBN 0-7884-2103-4.
• Merrick, Barbara Lambert.William Brewster of the Mayflower and His Descendants for Four Generations, Revised 3rd Edition, Barbara Lambert Merrick, compiler. General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2000.
• Sibley, John Langdon.Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1659-1677 Publisher: University Bookstore, 1881.
• Cochran, Charles F. "Early Generations of the Newton Family" (1928–29),Genealogies of Virginia Families from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), vol. 4

• Jones, Emma C. Brewster.The Brewster Genealogy, 1566-1907: a Record of the Descendants of William Brewster of the "Mayflower," ruling elder of the Pilgrim church which founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. New York: Grafton Press, 1908.
• "Life Visits the Mayflower Descendants"Life November 29, 1948: 129–32. ISSN 0024-3019

• The Elder William Brewster Society, A Pilgrim Lineage Society
• The Society of the Lees of Virginia
• Isaac Allerton at MayflowerHistory.com
• Last Will and Testament of Isaac Allerton at The Plymouth Colony Archive Project

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